


Felt by You, Held by You

by brewess



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Original Work
Genre: Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, Everyone is sad and looking for their lover ok, F/M, Implied Relationships, Original Character(s), Other, or missing their dead lover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-27
Updated: 2019-03-27
Packaged: 2019-12-18 15:23:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18252566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brewess/pseuds/brewess
Summary: Sad times abound for rogue who misses his dead girlfriend





	Felt by You, Held by You

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to my first ever published work here on ao3!
> 
> Shoutout to my pals for encouraging me to finally branch off tumblr and post my works here, you know who you are.
> 
> The character of Fen belongs to my dear friend Kelsey.

He was tired of keeping to the wilderness, sick of it even. The outskirts of settlements and cities taunted him, a reminder of what he was missing within,  _ who he was missing.  _ The sun was nestling itself in the crests of the mountains to the west and soon it would be dark with only the nightjars to sing them to sleep. 

 

Fen was still at the forest edge gathering firewood. He had promised after all that he would do it tonight if Valravyn agreed to cook their meal of wild grouse and rice. He reclined by the dying flame, giving it an occasional stir, paying it little attention as his mind wandered to more desirable terrain. 

 

“Do you think this will be enough? I had a hard time judging ‘cuz you know… I’m not one of you landwalkers.” The eager, curious voice of his companion signaled his return. 

 

“I got as a much as I could carry, do I need to go back for more? Please tell me I don’t.” The young man’s eyes did all but nothing to hide his plea as he dropped the armful of dry tinder. Fen brushed some soil and a few stray leaves from his clothing and settled by the fire, awaiting for Valravyn to stoke the embers that remained. 

 

“I’m sure these will suffice for the evening. Thank you.” The half-elf said absently, his mind still itching to be elsewhere, and he had to fight to keep the annoyance out of his voice. It wasn’t Fen’s fault afterall. It was his own. He was in this position by his own doing, his own misgivings, and his own mistakes. And everything around him reminded him of it.

 

They sat in silence for longer than Fen liked, he attempted to stir his companion’s attention. “You told me what that constellation was the other night.” He pointed at the sky, twinkling stars beginning to show their shining faces. “What was the name again? You landwalkers have completely different names than my people.”

 

“The Maiden. And on the left is Olesi, the Black Oak.” Valravyn sighed, wondering if he could steal away for the night…  _ it was still early.  _ The privacy of his tent sweetly beckoned.  _ Soon. _

 

“Does that really look like _ a Maiden _ to you?” Fen continued, still interested. He now sat closer to the comforting flame of the fire, warming his socked feet. 

 

A gentle breeze drifted over their camp, coaxing the flame to dance, and Valravyn’s hair to stir from its loose gathering at the base of his neck. “I don’t know, my mother taught me the names when I was a child. I didn’t name them.” The half-elf gave a stretch at the shoulder before reaching to untie his dark hair. “What sort of names do the Selkies five stars?”

 

Fen gave a musical laugh, “Normal things that make sense and are practical.” He smiled wide, showing every tooth. Fen loved to speak about his people, no matter how briefly. He missed them, and he missed  _ her _ especially.

 

“Well, I cannot argue with that.” Valravyn gave their fire another half hearted stoke and looked at his friend. Fen was smiling lazily at him now, and though the two had had a strenuous day while making their way ever closer to the western coast of Mirdonia, one wouldn’t have detected a bit of it in Fen’s warm gaze.

 

Valravyn was a different story, his bones ached from the journey, though it was nothing compared to the wolf that gnawed at his gut. The wolf that reminded him every waking moment of  _ who _ was no longer with him. 

 

He returned Fen’s warm gaze with a heavy lidded glance. “Long day today, and a longer day tomorrow. I’m going to bed.” Before Fen could attempt to convince him otherwise, the half-elf slipped away into his private tent. 

 

To bed however, not just yet for Valravyn. He removed his loose grey shirt and boots, the leather softly worn and well loved. Next he shook out his bedroll before digging a stubby candle out of a pocket in his backpack. He struck a match to light it and set it down on a patch of ground that was barren of grass. His tiny space feeling cozier when bathed in the incandescence of candlelight, it was only missing one more thing.

 

He felt a sudden jolt of worry and hoped that he wasn’t making too much noise and that Fen would get suspicious enough to poke his head inside. Valravyn pushed this thought from his mind as he produced the finishing touch he needed for his evening. It came in the form of a tarnished silver locket that hung from his neck. He deftly unhooked from it from its chain.

 

His spine decompressed and audibly cracked as he laid on his bedroll, the silky fur lining a welcome comfort on his toned back. Valravyn smoothed a thumb over the dull metal of the pendant and opened it, revealing the secret within.  _ “Hello, darling.”  _

 

And there she was. Sort of. It was one of the few things he had left of her, so it would have to do. The likeness of his great love, immortalized by her own hand in this tiny ink drawing. Though it was her face, her sweet lips and glinting eye, it did not fully capture the Liria he had so intimately known. 

 

Valravyn’s fingertip gently traced the edge of the locket as he carried on his stream of thoughts. “ _ This morning I got up early because the wrens were singing and wouldn’t shut up. Would have been bearable with you there.”  _

 

He closed his eyes, imagining his fingers were grazing the freckled skin of her shoulder rather than discolored metal.  _ “I can remember the morning I woke up when we were at the base of Riddle Peak, still in the woods. And you were sitting in the glade…”  _

 

Valravyn continued, his imagination creating a further picture of Liria. His words the brush and thoughts the paint. His hand shifting softly from her shoulder to the muscular curve of her neck, a place he had so adored stroking, a place he could easily cradle her jaw and caress her scarred cheek. 

 

_ “In that glade… and all the birds just collected around you. Chirping and making a racket but you didn’t even care, hell, you loved it…”  _ Valravyn’s words only a whisper on his lips, so lost in the dream he was crafting for himself while still awake. 

 

Valravyn’s hand remained at her jaw, stroking with care, and allowing his focus to come to her face. It came slowly, one feature at a time as he continued to murmur. 

 

_ “You loved birds... ”   _ Her mouth, ready for a laugh to spill. Lips that he should be kissing.

 

_ “The sun wasn’t up yet and there you were like always…”  _ Her nose, he loved the way it crinkled when she smiled as broadly as she could.

 

_ “A shrike, screaming on your shoulder, and it got louder when i got too close…”  _ Her eyes, bright and piercing, but honeyed in an instant. Enough to make him melt.

 

_ “And crazier still, that finch sitting in your hand like it belonged there…”  _  And that’s when the rest of the picture came flooding in all at once.

 

Her hair, short enough for it to be sandpaper under his palm. The scar on her lip, the jagged split in her brow, and the one through the center of her face. The glinting hint of gold from the ring that hung from her nose. The crook of her neck and curve of her hip as she lay beside him. 

 

Valravyn had attempted to memorize every inch of her existence when she had laid lifeless in his arms, and almost… she was almost  _ here. _ Close enough to him to touch, smell, and taste.

 

_ “But you didn’t care, you were happy with your songbirds…”  _ His imagined Liria, she smiled at Valravyn’s story, raised a brow, leaning into his body to whisper in his ear. So close… her breath hot on his neck…  _ Liria… _

 

“Hey, Val?” 

 

The moment he had perfectly shaped-- gone in an instant. Valravyn’s eyes opened to the unwelcome voice. He quickly scrambled, shutting the locket in his hand and holding it tight in his grip as he sat upright.

 

It was Fen. Of course. He had poked his head into the tent. “I heard you talking.” The light of the single candle was bright enough to illuminate his inquisitive eyes and the outline of his youthful face. “Are you alright?”

 

“Fine.” Valravyn said shortly, his annoyance at this intrusion clear in his tone. He did his best to ignore the heat he felt rising at the tips of his ears. “Just planning aloud for tomorrow. But I’m going to bed. Goodnight.”

 

The half-elf leaned to blow out the candle. The tent now lightless. 

 

Fen’s voice hitched slightly in his throat “I, uh… alright. Goodnight.” He replied, shutting the tent flap and wandering off, feeling almost bad about his barging in. His mind had a new question,  _ what was he holding?  _

 

Valravyn was now alone. Again. Fen off to his tent. The imagined Liria now only a heavy weight in his chest. He still had the locket in an iron grip in his hand. He let out a deep exhale, his posture relaxing again as he loosed his hold on the pendant.

 

He turned it over a few times in his fingers before placing a soft kiss on the engraved front.  _ Goodnight, baby.  _ He kept the thought behind his teeth this time, not a sound escaping his lips as he replaced the trinket on the chain where it belonged. 

 

Valravyn was in for it; another endless night with an empty spot in his bedroll. Only a memory to soothe him to sleep in the dark of his tent. She was gone.  _ Again. _

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Liria Heavenbreaker is my main character in my current DnD campaign. She is a monk, and before joining her current party, her life was very different than it is now. First, she lived a reclusive and pious life, dedicating herself to her 701 gods before being unjustly exiled and excommunicated from her monastery. She was doomed to walk the unfamiliar land alone for the rest of her days, and she did just that before running into a half elf vigilante by the name of Valravyn.
> 
> The two spent a year together in Valravyn's home-- the elven city state of Wyngor. He worked tirelessly to bring down the corrupt oligarchs that poisoned his home, and with the help of Liria, he and his shadowy underground organization of other vigilantes were able to better the city-state. That is, until the unimaginable happened.
> 
> In a cruel turn of fate, Liria was killed, or at least to Valrayn's eyes, she did. In reality, the monk was spirited away and revived by her patron deity and placed within the likeness of a statue, where her current adventuring party found her some time later-- on another continent, far from Wyngor and far from Valravyn... 
> 
> Liria remains with her party on the distant continent of Aramere, determined to find her dear beloved, wherever he may be. Valravyn, he plots revenge from a distance on those that seemingly killed his Liria.


End file.
